Rugby World Cup: Mark Cueto scores the first try of the match against Romania (Pic: Getty Images)

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MARK CUETO scored one of the fastest hat-tricks seen in international rugby to put the smile back on the face of team mate Mike Tindall.

A match England needed to win convincingly to move on from the Tindall episode, was settled inside the first half hour when Cueto bagged an 11-minute hat-trick.

By the end of a lop-side encounter Martin Johnson's team had racked up 10 tries, with Chris Ashton also scoring three times.

It means England, with three wins from three, lead Pool B by five points from Scotland, who face third-placed Argentina in Wellington tomorrow. England play Scotland in Auckland a week today.

Such a one-sided result was always the likely outcome but it didn't appear that way when England conceded as many penalties as they scored points in the first 15 minutes.

Few doubted the 1/1000 favourites would end up steam rollering Romania's second team, the minnows resting their best players for next Wednesday's crunch clash with Georgia.

Yet it took a while to play out as Johnson's men began anxiously and the indiscipline of the previous two matches reared its ugly head.

When they conceded their third penalty in no time at all you could sense Johnson's fury boiling over inside the coaches' box.

England must have sensed it too for they suddenly burst into life and within 11 minutes of scoring his and England's first try Mark Cueto had three.

It did not require any spectacular play on England's part. As Johnson has always said, it's about doing the simple things well.

Chris Ashton came into the line to work the overlap for Cueto's first, a quickly taken tap by Ben Youngs led to his second, a Tindall turnover launched the third.

Romania didn't know what had hit them. It was almost as devastating as being told by tournament chiefs they're next game is on Wednesday. Cueto's three-timer, quick though it was, was actually four minutes slower than the time Adam Ashley-Cooper needed to complete his against the United States 24 hours earlier.

No matter, this was not a night to dwell on statistics other than the penalty count - and England continued their profligacy in that area of the game after Ashton had bagged two tries in three minutes shortly before the break.

For reasons best known only to them, Lewis Moody's side handed Romania three penalty shots at goal in first half stoppage time, with Marin Dumbrava converting one.

Ashton's tries, incidentally, were not celebrated in particularly lavish fashion. A standard dot down for the first, after Jonny Wilkinson had put him in with a delightful inside pass.

And a swallow dive for the second, following fine support work from Louis Deacon and Steve Thompson, but only after he was well over the goal line.

With England up 34-3 at half-time, Johnson withdrew Wilkinson and prop Dan Cole, to give Toby Flood and David Wilson some game time.

Within seconds of the restart the revised line-up had pocketed a sixth try, with Youngs picking up from the base of a scrum, playing a one-two with Manu Tuilagi, and running it back 80 metres.

It was now a question of how many - penalties conceded, that is.

For while Ben Foden finished off a seventh try, England had strayed into double-digit penalty territory for the third successive game, inside an hour.

Sadly for the Oaks, their goal kicker fared about as well as his Georgian counterpart did last week and England were let off the hook.

And the men in white finished with a flourish, Tuilagi, Tom Croft and Ashton's hat-trick score taking their try count to 10.